MarketingBeyondAdvertising.com » Doenges Ford http://www.marketingbeyondadvertising.com Accelerate your credibility to drive more traffic, sales and word-of-mouth Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:19:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Screaming Fire in a Crowded Theater: Marketing Ploys and Gimmicks http://www.marketingbeyondadvertising.com/2009/07/screaming-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-marketing-ploys-and-gimmicks/ http://www.marketingbeyondadvertising.com/2009/07/screaming-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-marketing-ploys-and-gimmicks/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:37:05 +0000 Tom Wanek http://s81139.gridserver.com/?p=141 Screaming Fire Marketing and Advertising GimmicksRelevancy is the filter used by the human brain to discount that which is unimportant. Without relevancy, even surprising facts won’t get through to the decision-making part of the brain.

For marketers, this means that advertising ploys and gimmicks have a short shelf-life.

Consider the humdinger of a marketing stunt put on by one Ford dealership in Bartlesville, OK.

Earlier this month, Doenges Ford heavily promoted an event where the public could witness a Ford F-150 being ‘dropped’ from atop Bartlesville Price Tower. That’s right. Nineteen floors. Two hundred and twenty feet.

Yes, the stunt drew a whopper of a crowd. Hundreds lined up to witness the devastation.

But onlookers were disappointed to find that a truck did not come crashing down. No, the dealership simply dropped a banner reading, “THIS IS IT: We’ve dropped the price of our Ford F-150s.”

Pretty silly, huh? Those in attendance rolled their eyes and went home with displeasure.

Doenges Ford failed to realize that persuasion is the goal of advertising and marketing. And a message absent of relevancy can never be persuasive. Marketing ploys and gimmicks are the equivalent of falsely screaming fire in a crowded theater. They erode your company’s credibility.



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